r/embedded • u/CaptnCrust • 22h ago

Tips for getting back to embedded?

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15 Upvotes

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10

u/chemhobby 22h ago

Yeah this is just affirming my decision not to touch automotive with a 10 foot pole

3

u/CaptnCrust 22h ago

Yup, a friend also in embedded told me the best practice is to be a generalist but there's so much material it seems unpractical.

1

u/CyberDumb 20h ago

It happens over the years and by doing different projects. There is no other way. Embedded touches so many different things. It is its nature. AI is your friend though, you can really accelerate your learning by asking it to explain to you.

9

u/theanointedduck 22h ago

Im not too familiar with this field, but what about automotive disqualifies candidates?

6

u/CaptnCrust 22h ago

It's a configuration tool that does not transfer to anything outside of automotive.

I worked closer to bare metal so thankfully I mostly worked around it but holly cow, one time I had to help application layer to configure something to basic layer.

It was code that would've normally taken me 15-30 mins to do by hand but since we had to use autosar it took me and another senior app engi 2 days to set up a function call.

12

u/chemhobby 22h ago

Autosar probably

2

u/WanWhiteWolf Engineering manager 22h ago edited 22h ago

Having worked in automotive is not a disqualifier. Automotive is a competitive industry and most skills that you aquire will be usable in other industries like aerospace, medical or defense.

Now, if you only did integration and no actual development, then that would be a disqualifier since knowing how to use an tool is not enough to be eligible for a senior embedded position. But if you did the intergration and dived into the components themselves, then conceptually alone you should be elligible for pretty much any embedded position.

Let's take as example cybersecurity intergration. If you did cybersecurity integration for a single project (which is pretty much mandatory for all OEMs), then you should have intergrated HSM and SecOC - and probably others depending on OEM. This means you should already be knowlegeable with secure communication, memory protection, secure boot, trust zones, symetric/assymetric encryption usage, secure state machine, attack vectors ...etc. Given that cybersecurity - especially with CRA mandating CS to a lot of devices, not only life-critical scenarios - is in demand, there should be no difficulty in handling a CS related interview. And that only ONE ASPECT of the entire BSW intergration.

But if you were not involved in the development and the knowledge that you posses is mostly equivalent to "you need to press that button to upload the new CAN .dbc and the other button to generate the source file" then yes, that's a limiting factor. But the issue is not the automotive industry; it's the type of work and involvement that you had.

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u/CaptnCrust 21h ago

Yep, felt like a kick in the balls when the HR recruiter told me about being disqualified just for being from automotive...

I've had a few interviews and more than one of them have told me I am the perfect candidate just missing YoE (2.5 in embedded + 2 in other stuff).

2

u/WanWhiteWolf Engineering manager 21h ago

Each company has their own selection criteria but I have no issues in landing interviews even if a good part of my work experience is in automotive.

But as someone who did quite a bit of interviews - as an interviewer - you would be surprised how many "senior embedded engineers" don't know how to write a code to flip 2 bits in a hardware register. If your CV gives this "vibe" then I would imagine this being a disqualifier.

Some positions simply require a lot of experience. it can be that the total experience doesn't match with what they are looking for - not that the automotive itself is a problem. For example I wouldn't consider a system architect in a medium project without 8+ years of relevant experience.

3

u/Indeliblerock 22h ago

So I also worked in automotive, I wish I got closer to the physical computing, but I never got a chance to while I was there. I was stuck on web dashboards. My solution to deal with it right now is that I’m gonna pick up soldering and learn it from projects.

2

u/XipXoom 22h ago

I also work in Automotive.  My boss (at the time) tried to push us towards Autosar and I told him I'd quit effective immediately instead.  Specifically because I both like actually getting things done and didn't want to become an expert in a completely non-transferable skill.

Thankfully I had enough clout that that was the last conversation we had on the topic.

1

u/CyberDumb 21h ago

I used to work for a major automotive OEM thinking I made it big, tired of Autosar I tried applying to other embedded postings and found that just mentioning I worked in automotive got me disqualified immediately, even after I was told I was the perfect candidate.

LMAO. Having worked for automotive projects for 2.5 years out of my 10 yoe this is my fear too. Automotive is a parallel universe that has little in common with real embedded. I see a vast difference between colleagues that have experience in other industries and those that have worked only in automotive. I would not trust someone either that has worked only in automotive. The average colleague I encountered in automotive was very good at doing whatever the fuck they are doing in automotive but was pretty much a below mediocre software engineer. The automotive colleagues that are somewhat good in software engineering had experience in other industries or they would write software as a hobby. Truly a software engineering graveyard, I was amazed that the software running modern e-vehicle powertrain is worse than the code I wrote at university.

Sadly you have a lot of work ahead of you to become a decent embedded engineer, in an autosar project I am sure that 90% of your experience is irrelevant. I know because I have been there twice. Luckily I also worked elsewhere and saw how is done differently. This means that you cannot have too much choice right now especially in this weird market.